Isn’t there just something romantic and nostalgic about kites? Maybe it brings back memories of summer, time spent with family, a first date, or the adorable song “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” from Mary Poppins. With those kind of warm, relaxed thoughts in our minds, we turned to kites for 4th of July inspiration! We decided to make a mini kite garland first and the rest of party look fell into place from there.
Supplies:
– red, white, and blue scrapbook paper or card stock
– red, white, and blue ribbons
– red and blue paper straws
– baker’s twine
Tools:
– ruler
– scissors
– hot glue gun
– glue stick
– pen
How fun do all those red, white, and blue supplies look?!
Make your own kite stencil by measuring out a “t. To make the vertical part of the “t”, make a line that is 15.5 cm tall. Then, 10 cm from the bottom of that line, make the horizontal part of the “t” 8.5 cm wide. Connect all the sides to create the kite shape and then cut it out. Use that as a stencil and trace two kites on your desired paper. Cut those out and glue them together using a glue stick. Once they are glued together, trim off any edges showing from the back piece.
Next up, cut straws to fit the height and length of the kites. Use blue straws on the red papers and vice versa. Glue the horizontal straw down first using a glue stick or hot glue gun; repeat with the vertical straw. Then glue on a kite string to each kite measuring 7.5 inches. Tie 3 little pieces of ribbon to each kite tail.
To really take your kites to the next patriotic level, cut out pieces of blue paper to go on the red kites so they will look more like flags. Simply cut out a square of blue paper, place it where it will go, then flip the whole thing over and trace where to cut it. Use this a stencil to cut out the rest of the blue “star” shapes, and then glue them onto the kites.
Now they’re ready to be strung up by running bakers twine through all the horizontal straw pieces.
This flag kite garland is adorable on it’s own, but if you have some leftover paper and twine, you can make a simple pendant garland that will compliment it really well. Just cut out triangles of any size (we did 4 inches wide and 5 inches tall) and glue them onto bakers twine. Easy peasy!
You can have your kites hang side by side close together like we did, or leave some string showing between each one.
For an outdoor party, we would probably leave some string showing in between each kite.
Don’t want to spend oodles on a tablecloth only to have it spilled on and stained? We just used an inexpensive drop cloth from Home Depot that is normally used for painting project. It’s very durable and can be ironed to get out wrinkles. It’s even water proof, so it would also work as a picnic blanket!
And you can add a little something extra to your table-scape (yes, we decided that’s a word)? Just throw down a garland or banner! Let it wind and curve a little bit to add that little bit extra interest to the design.